Skills day at the local park

[Jojo]

I told my local league I'd come out for skills day and work with the girls that wanted to be pitchers.


A little back story about my local league.
Small town, (actually it encompasses two small towns) league has one boys field and one youth field it serves the T-ballers, and girls softball.
Big softball girls have to use the boys field with a mound. The boys field is the only one with lights.

So over the years there hasn't been much interest in softball. 3 years ago it was almost abandoned when only 8 girls signed up.
Then this wonderful parent decided this shouldn't happen and he went around the communities bringing awareness to the program. Along came some other interested parents and through tons of hard work over the last 2 years the program is coming back to life.
They got volunteers to repair the press box, fences and fields. Got a lot of local businesses to sponsor the program. Got the county to repave the road. Set up a social network page and this year got registration flyers included into the water bills.

88 girls signed up! from 8 to 88 in 3 years! --only about 54 boys signed up.

MOST of these girls have never played before. The entire 14u team has never played. They don't even have a coach right now, but have some parents that said they'd help out.

At skills day, they set up the girls by age groups and I went around each group asking who pitched. I got 3. 2 were my students and one from another instructor.

There are 2 10u teams and 2 of the pitchers are on one team.
SO 1 10u has NO PITCHER

1 12u team has one pitcher

1 14u--NO PITCHER!

So I worked with about 16 girls on Saturday trying to get some interested.

So far I've had one call. But at least it was from a 14u!
Still a little nervous about the other 10u team and no pitcher.

Going to need a good pitching base to keep this program going, just hope I can get somewhere with this Saturday pre-season program.

I'll let you know how it goes!

 

[AndyS]

I told my local league I'd come out for skills day and work with the girls that wanted to be pitchers.


A little back story about my local league.
Small town, (actually it encompasses two small towns) league has one boys field and one youth field it serves the T-ballers, and girls softball.
Big softball girls have to use the boys field with a mound. The boys field is the only one with lights.

So over the years there hasn't been much interest in softball. 3 years ago it was almost abandoned when only 8 girls signed up.
Then this wonderful parent decided this shouldn't happen and he went around the communities bringing awareness to the program. Along came some other interested parents and through tons of hard work over the last 2 years the program is coming back to life.
They got volunteers to repair the press box, fences and fields. Got a lot of local businesses to sponsor the program. Got the county to repave the road. Set up a social network page and this year got registration flyers included into the water bills.

88 girls signed up! from 8 to 88 in 3 years! --only about 54 boys signed up.

MOST of these girls have never played before. The entire 14u team has never played. They don't even have a coach right now, but have some parents that said they'd help out.

At skills day, they set up the girls by age groups and I went around each group asking who pitched. I got 3. 2 were my students and one from another instructor.

There are 2 10u teams and 2 of the pitchers are on one team.
SO 1 10u has NO PITCHER

1 12u team has one pitcher

1 14u--NO PITCHER!

So I worked with about 16 girls on Saturday trying to get some interested.

So far I've had one call. But at least it was from a 14u!
Still a little nervous about the other 10u team and no pitcher.

Going to need a good pitching base to keep this program going, just hope I can get somewhere with this Saturday pre-season program.

I'll let you know how it goes!

JoJo awesome story...thank you for sharing. We need more of you in the sport. I hope my DD gives back like this example.

 

[colin]

good luck getting some pitchers going. lifeblood of rec leagues. around here the girls cannot play on a travel team and not a rec team.

 

[JAD]

WOW, that is awesome!!! I wish I lived closer, I would have LOVED to help out.

 

[Top_Notch]

That is awesome.

My daughter, after 3 years of rec, started TB on an 8U. (Yes, she played early as we fudged her age) The 8U team is part of a "B level" organization although our team is loaded with A level talent. (We beat 10U travel teams). What surprised me was the lack of 8U travel teams in the area and we live in a large metro area. I feel we were lucky to find a good fit on this team. I guess most start TB at 10U and then there are too many of those teams for the amount of girls available. They should be grooming them earlier. Two more years of rec ball would have been two years time wasted.

(We are playing in a different organization because they were one of 2 local 8U teams). Our 8U team is highly competitive (as is my daughter) and our thought process was if TB didn't work out we could go back to our local in-house organization...until I went to the All Star game from the rec. league where I coached. Oh my God, there is no going back. (I had to have my wife clarify twice that the All Stars were only one year younger than my daughter, not two!)

My point being, start them young and build them up!

 

[Jojo]

My point being, start them young and build them up!

The league did get off to a good start this year, and fielded (2) 6u teams and a 8u team. So that's a big jump in the right direction for the league.

I only had one younger one bite on pitching and she was 6. She played last year as an 8u when she was 5 because they didn't have 8u.
She wants to play 8u again this year.
I'm having her come out to the Saturday sessions and hopefully she'll catch the bug.

 

[Jojo]

WOW, that is awesome!!! I wish I lived closer, I would have LOVED to help out.

Could have used you!

 

[djcarter1966]

Great to see interest is up. What we did was get with a local pitching coach, former college pitcher, and let her run a clinic and also group lessons one day a week during the month of practices before league play starts...the league paid but at a pretty reduced rate. It was a win-win we got girls interested and obviously she picked up a few new students (she also does conditioning and hitting instruction). Also I am not sure how your draft works but during skills day we have any girl interested in pitching throw 10 to 20 pitches after all the other girls are done. Anyone that shows any potential is listed as either a pitcher or probable pitcher then during the draft you HAVE to select a pitcher, we do this because we understand how important pitchers are and via gentleman's agreement there is almost no gaming the system and it has worked very well. All that to say unless the girls are sisters we would not let two pitchers on one team with the other getting no pitcher, unless there was some exceptional circumstances.

 

[Jojo]

Great to see interest is up. What we did was get with a local pitching coach, former college pitcher, and let her run a clinic and also group lessons one day a week during the month of practices before league play starts...the league paid but at a pretty reduced rate. It was a win-win we got girls interested and obviously she picked up a few new students (she also does conditioning and hitting instruction). Also I am not sure how your draft works but during skills day we have any girl interested in pitching throw 10 to 20 pitches after all the other girls are done. Anyone that shows any potential is listed as either a pitcher or probable pitcher then during the draft you HAVE to select a pitcher, we do this because we understand how important pitchers are and via gentleman's agreement there is almost no gaming the system and it has worked very well. All that to say unless the girls are sisters we would not let two pitchers on one team with the other getting no pitcher, unless there was some exceptional circumstances.

Only 2 age groups had two teams--6u & 10u.

I asked if they were going to pull the 6u teams out of the hat and they said they wanted to discuss that with the 2 coaches, but neither coach showed up for skills day. It's still hard to get parent involvement. It's that catch 22 situation where the parents don't want to get involved until they see their kids doing well, but the kids can't do well until they get parent involvement.

As far as the 2 10u teams and the one 10u team getting the only 2 10u pitchers.......I asked about that. They said, those 2 girls have played together since 8u, the whole team was together last year and to avoid them having a rocky year split apart they decided to keep them together.
Now mind you, in any other league this would be a stacked team and more than likely argued against in the local co-op, but the skill levels of these girls is still below par with the average league.
The pitchers... One is mine, the other from another instructor. My student will do okay, she's new, just started this summer, not big on practicing, and has no parent at home to work with her, so she'll be okay, but isn't going to dominate.
The other pitcher has been taking lessons for a year, she'll be okay too, she has horrible mechanics(I'll never understand why these coaches teach these kids they way they do.) But she can throw strikes. She has to go outside her mechanics in order to throw the strikes, but about every 4th pitch she can throw a strike.
I did try to work with her but called her mother over and said I didn't want to change anything since she was seeing an instructor.

I'd love to see the day where there are enough teams and enough pitchers where they can actually do pitcher try-outs and pitcher drafts.

 

[SoCalASABlue]

I guess most start TB at 10U and then there are too many of those teams for the amount of girls available. They should be grooming them earlier.

My point being, start them young and build them up!

Happy for you that your situation worked out...BUT I laugh every time I see anything about 8U travel ball.

Having had this discussion with DD, and understanding this is purely anecdotal, DD's pitching coach was telling her from 2nd year 10U forward that she was ready for TB - but DD was the one that decided when SHE was ready. If DW and I had "suggested" TB like PC wanted before DD decided it was time (1st year 14U), DD would not be playing today.

And she certainly wouldn't be competing at D3 next year.